This is my view from the office window! The two ships pictured here are the Nathanial Palmer (sci research vessel) and a Russian Cruise ship in front of the transantarctics

Coast Guard Cutter and the fuel re-supply ship in dock at McMurdo

Pic of me in front of a Coast Guard Delphine with Mt. Erebus in the background

View of the rookery from the pumping station

Sampling ~450gallons of Pony Lake water

The water was pumped from the lake to the ice-edge where the 5-gallon carboys were filled

Chris at the first filling station

Proof that I did also did a little work

Hauling water up to the slingload

mmmm...that's some smelly penguin piss

Picture of Mt. Erebus, the helo pad and our slingload.

Chris bravely waiting for the helo to come into position to hook the load

Hooking the slingload (2)

transporting one of three slingloads from Cape Royds back to McMurdo

Chris getting a little dose of Pony Lake on his shirt.

collection of filters we used to remove the live algae and particulates before transfer to columns.

Assembly of columns for the isolation of the unique organic matter found at Pony Lake

A Fond Farewell

My last night at McMurdo has arrived. I’m taking the next C-141 headed north, destination Christchurch, New Zealand. Returning to the land of starry nights and fresh veggies (the last time I experienced nighttime was November 10^th!). My final few weeks of the season were so hectic I like to compare them to the last couple weeks before my dissertation defense. Even so, although the hours were long, the experience was extremely rewarding…and a lot of fun too.

In our final big push of work we headed out to Cape Royds several days in a row to collect a final total of 450gallons of lake water. This was not such an easy task. We filled 5-gallon carboys one at a time using a small generator and pump that would fill each 5-gallon container in about 10minutes. We would then strap this container (weighing around 45lbs) to an external pack frame and hike it up-hill to the helo pad. At the helo pad we had placed 55-gallon drums that we would fill 5-gallons at a time. All together we filled 9 55-gallon drums, which were then transported by sling-load back to the Crary labs at McMurdo station. Check out some of the pics below for the sling-load transport. In order to hook the sling load to the helo one of us would have to run underneath a hovering helo and physically hook the net to a cable hanging just a couple feet from the bottom runner. It was really exciting, and one thing I learned is hanging out underneath a B212 helo hovering just a few feet above your head is not as much fun as it sounds.

Once the water was transported back to Crary, the real work began. In front of us we had 450gallons of some of the greenest, smelliest water around to filter and processes. Estimating from the volume of our columns and the flow-rate through our pumps we were going to have to run our filters and columns 24/7 if we were going to get through all this water. Being the night-owl of the group I volunteered for the graveyard shift. The cool thing about McMurdo is it being sunny all day it was not difficult to get accustomed to working from 6pm to 8am. In fact, many people choose to work this shift and in order to serve them, the galley serves a full-on midnight meal for the night-shift workers, called MidRats. If it weren’t for my week of working the night shift I would not have learned the secret of MidRats: Since most flights arrive from New Zealand in the late afternoon or early evening, the fresh food is not processed through the kitchen in time for dinner but it is ready for MidRats….so I’ve come to learn that the midnight meal at McMurdo usually has the best and freshest food and the fewest people to share!

So now I’ve made the transition back to days, and I’m usually asleep by MidRats, and it is indeed time to head home. The lab is bare, our samples are already en route to Ohio, and I’m on the next flight home. This being my first blog-experience I have to admit it’s been a great means of communicating my experience to many of my friends and relatives and I want to thank all of you who took the time to read and to comment on my rambling prose and fuzzy pictures. But don’t worry, this isn’t over yet…check back sometime late February for pictures from New Zealand where I might have to switch back to nights just to enjoy the stars!!


Peace - Ryan

Some parting shots

Below are a collection of my favorite senic pics taken over the last two days out at Cape Royds.

My last view of the Barne Glacier!

Panoramic View of the Adelie rookery at Cape Royds

Panoramic of Mt. Erebus from Cape Royds

Vista of Shakelton's Hut from edge of Pony Lake

Skua with chick

group of adelies checking out our pump and tubing

The penguins were particularly active on our last trip out, it was wild to see them approach us with a comic curiousity.

totally interested in what we were doing in their home.

Last trip to Royds I finally took the time to climb the cliffs and get a different perspective of the rookery and the cape itself

Veiw of several penguins and Weddell Seals taking advantage of the breaking sea ice from the cliffs of Cape Royds

This is the beginning of the Wright Valley, one of the many valleys located within the Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site. The Dry Valleys is one of the most striking, magnificent and remarkable places. With luck, future research endeavors will include sites, such as the Cotton Glacier, over in the Valleys. I hope from these pictures you can see why some refer to this place as ClubMed for geochemists. Sounds pretty dorky, but its absolutely true.

This section of the upper Wright Valley is known as the Labryinth, which is just below the ice falls pictured above.

The Onyx River, Wright Valley...within the Dry Valleys LTER.

As many of you have already notice, in my opinion, the Wright Valley may be one of the most magnificent places around...as you can tell from my many pics in and around this section of the Dry Valleys.

This is one of the many glaciers in the Dry Valleys, although I can't recall which one...that's the steel-cage I call my mind hard at work.

...just a pretty cool pic from the helo.

One of the most striking scenes in the Dry Valleys is Blood Falls. Upstream from this glacial washout are microorganisms actively reducing the iron buried in old deposits (known as Banded Iron Formations). This colorless and soluble form of iron is transported by the stream to the point where the stream surfaces and encounters the atmosphere. The oxygen in the atmosphere almost immedately reacts with the abundant dissolved iron essentially causing the water to rust.

This annular feature formed from the glacial till washing down from above the Miller Glacier above has formed this Dry Valley feature known as The Ringer.

Welcome to Don Juan Pond, the most saline body of water on earth. This pond, located in the Wright Valley, is 2-3 times as salty as the dead sea, and yet is teeming with microbial activity.

Shot of the Wright Valley from Don Juan Pond

Don Juan Pond featuring our very own PI - Penney Miller. Wind erosion is responsible for carving up that rock...just amazing if you ask me.

I haven't dedicated any space on my blog thus far to antarctica waste mgmt, so I thought I'd introduce the topic with some humor. There is a "no trace" policy in effect, at Cape Royds this means we always travel with our Pee-Bottles (don't ask about the poo-bags!); but longer-term solutions are required at the established camps in the Valleys. This solution comes in the form of a not-too full 55-gallon drum (remember water expands when it freezes, so an over-full drum could be disasterously halarious assuming I'm not too close).

Breaking News

Greetings to the Meek and Humble

News from McMurdo, while slow in coming from this correspondent, is that we've just cleared a crazy 8-day "summer" storm. High winds, frequent snow has kept all flights from Christchurch away. Even though I spent some time in MN and WI, I've never experienced such an extended snow event where none of the snow falls from up to down, just blows side to side. No flight equals no mail, and more importantly, no fresh food (and Mom - I still haven't received the package you sent!). Take into account the recent arrival of the Coast Guard cutter and it's crew of ~200 imposing on our exquisite dining facilities, decent food is definitely in short supply. The weather cleared up for us yesterday, just enough to get our hopes up for a trip to Cape Royds today, but no such luck. Even though the wind and snow are still at bay, we are nicely settled into a quite little fog bank (very low visibility). So, here we are, spending another day on "standby" on the helo schedule. The upside of being on standby is as soon as the fog lifts, we're likely to catch the first helo out to Pony Lake. The downside, and what I like to call "reality", is that the fog is not going anywhere anytime soon, and being on standby, we really aren't able to get anything significant accomplished in lab. So here I am doing my best to be productive this a.m. while not loosing my mind (or whatever remains) from boredom. God Bless the Internet!

As some of you might already be aware, the movements of iceberg B15-A is big news around McMurdo. This iceberg, roughly the size of Jamaica, is on a collision course with the Drygalski Ice Tongue, which extends into the Ross Sea. While this might seem like small potatoes to many of you in more temperate climates, this is a very significant event for the future success of the US Antarctic Program, as well for the future success of many penguin colonies who make their home on Ross Island. For more on this check out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4165307.stm

As I whittle the time away on my all-important blog, I am instantly reminded that I have just 2 weeks left on the ice. My imminent departure puts our weather-trapped situation feel all that more desperate. Nonetheless, to my dedicated fans and critics, I promise to get another round of photos (of the magnificent Dry Valleys!) up on my site pretty soon. Who knows, as my productivity continues to soar right thru the cellar, I'll probably post that round of photos later this evening! Thanks to all those who comment on my site, it really is a treat to know that there are people out there looking at the dribble I put on the ol' internet.

Peace and Love to all

Dr. Rock

The upper Cotton

view #3 of the Upper Cotton

view #4 of the Upper Cotton

View#6 of the Upper Cotton

Here's where the flow picks up to the point where we'll think of collecting a few samples...that is to say, trying to find somewhere to land our helo.

Wide perspective of the Cotton Glacier melt. No cute penguins, but smells much nicer than Pony Lake.

Cool little spot where the stream has carved a small tunnel in the ice, reappearing several hundred yards away.

Close-up of one branch of the Cotton streams as it dives beneath the surface

Crusin' to see where this puppy ends...

The end of the Cotton Stream as it dives beneath the surface. Eventually the stream will empty into the Ross Sea not too far from this point.

View of the steam atop of the Cotton Glacier with TransAntarctics framing the background.